Monthly Archives: March 2010

March 24, 2010; Charleston, SC: The Carolina eHealth Alliance (CeHA) performed its first live demonstration of a new online patient information system that will soon connect 11 emergency departments around the Lowcountry.

“CeHA members unanimously feel that this new technology is impressive,” said David Dunlap, President and CEO of Roper St. Francis Healthcare and CeHA’s governance committee chairman. “Our original governance committee organizer, Dr. Raymond Greenberg, President of MUSC, focused our guiding principles around improving the quality of healthcare across the region through an enabling technology that links caregivers, though a common system, with key patient data,” continued Mr. Dunlap. “As a by-product, an improved patient experience combined with reduced care delivery costs are anticipated region-wide. And we are incredibly fortunate to have The Duke Endowment as our partner. They have provided the initial funding for this initiative, thereby having no up-front cost by any of our hospitals.”

The first demonstration took place at Summerville Medical Center’s emergency department (ED). ED physicians and nurse clinicians were able to test the system with live patient information that was being exchanged between MUSC and their own ER. “Trident Health System continues to improve service in our three emergency departments by providing this new technology system to our physicians and patients,” said Todd Gallati, President and CEO of Trident Health System, a participating member of the Alliance. “This is another example of how this new information exchange will enhance the level of care we provide to our patients in the ER.”

2 | Patients and Hospitals Benefit with New Information Exchange

The information systems’ partner for this program is TELUS Health Solutions, which is opening a local office in Charleston next month. Allison Larsen, Vice President with TELUS added, “Our system will provide each of the Alliance’s emergency departments with a means to accurately identify patients and quickly aggregate/consolidate key electronic portions of their medical records from participating institutions. Examples of such information are: emergency department/clinic notes, discharge summaries, lab/pathology and radiology results, care/referral data, Rx and e-prescriptions, problems lists and more. We’re excited to be opening an office in Charleston and truly becoming part of this community.”

“When I arrived as CEO of East Cooper Regional Medical Center in the fall of 2008, I had a vision that the award winning care we provide to our immediate community would ultimately touch the broader region,” said Janie Sinacore-Jaberg, CEO of East Cooper Medical Center, a participating member of the Alliance. “The first phase of this vision is becoming a reality by interconnecting our regional emergency departments. As East Cooper Medical Center doubles the size of our facility in 2010, it’s even more important that we begin connecting with other institutions throughout the region,” concluded Sinacore-Jaberg.

About CeHA

The Carolina eHealth Alliance exists to provide South Carolina citizens with more effective and efficient delivery of healthcare services through networked systems that share patient-specific information. By testing and studying this data exchange across all phase 1 emergency department access points, the participating hospitals will continue to evaluate the benefits of expansion in patient data as well as in health system facilities and geography. Participating care delivery organizations presently include: MUSC’s ED sites at three different hospitals: the main hospital’s ED, the new Ashley River Tower ED and the Pediatric Hospital’s ED. Additional sites include: East Cooper Medical Center, as well as the New East Cooper Medical Center and all three Trident Health System ED sites at Trident Medical Center, Summerville Medical Center and Moncks Corner Medical Center. In addition, all four existing Roper St. Francis Emergency Departments (Roper downtown Charleston, St. Francis West Ashley, Roper Berkeley in Moncks Corner and Roper Northwoods in North Charleston) will participate and be brought on board in phases with plans to include the new Mount Pleasant Hospital ED opening November 1.

About TELUS Health Solutions

TELUS Health Solutions is a leading provider of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for the health industry. We develop, implement and manage healthcare applications, ICT processes and industry consulting services that optimize the efficiency of caregivers, drive better decisions, and foster prevention in the health system. For more information about TELUS, please visit telushealth.com.TELUS (TSX: T, T.A; NYSE: TU) is a leading national telecommunications company in Canada, with $9.7 billion of annual revenue and 11.6 million customer connections including 6.2 million wireless subscribers, 4.2 million wireline network access lines and 1.2 million Internet subscribers.

Dr. Rowley: I began practicing medicine in the 70’s as a family practitioner in a group practice in the Bay area. I became active with regional IPAs and got exposure to the managed care side of the business. I also became very interested in learning about technology and informatics in the 80s. I was your typical physician who dictated my notes and had an assistant transcribe and file them in paper charts. Similar probably to so many practices at the time, using paper charts was very cumbersome; I wouldn’t have information accessible to me on patients at the right time, or the information was incomplete. That was the pivotal point for me so I decided to develop my own EMR system. I spent a good amount of my time in the 90s developing a robust and easy to use EMR system, which was then acquired by Practice Fusion where I am the CMO. Our solution focuses on workflows and we now have over 150 templates for different specialties. We provide free EMR solutions to small practices. We’ve had great success so far and we’re growing at the rate of 100 providers per day.

CMIO Magazine: What key clinical projects are you working on?

Dr. Rowley: The top three clinical projects would have to be: regulatory issues, making sure we’re on track to get our EMR software certified to meet the “meaningful use” criteria, and ARRA. I work closely with engineering to enhance our software, address outstanding issues, and to make sure we have developed a path to getting our EMR certified while maintaining our client base without major interruptions. I also get involved with the business side, such as assisting with RFPs and some business development initiatives.

CMIO Magazine: What Practice Fusion products or services should hospitals and other providers know about but probably don’t?

Dr. Rowley: Our EMR product is geared for ambulatory practices. Our web-hosted solution can be accessed from any internet-enabled device (except PDAs such as iPhone, which is not flash-based). Whether an IBM device or Macintosh, so long as there is internet connectivity, the end user is empowered to view and document on patient charts. We have taken steps to establish a safe and secure infrastructure; probably better than a typical system in a hospital environment. We are much more focused on data security and adhering to HIPAA security standards. In addition to registration, scheduling, and the EMR, our software is capable of e-prescribing and of course it’s free for our clients to use!

We have developed what we call Smart Templates to address Specialties and their unique workflows. The data is owned by the clinic but we’re the custodians of the data.

CMIO Magazine: How has Practice Fusion solutions made a difference in patient experience?

Dr. Rowley: I think the patient experience is two-fold in that the physician is armed with good and complete data at the point of care; this is a significant paradigm shift from traditional processes. The patients notice how well the provider is prepared by focusing on the condition rather than asking repeated questions around past medical history of the patient because they couldn’t find it in a traditional paper chart environment. The second impact is that with the patient portal we have developed and continue to enhance (the Personal Health Record is called Patient Fusion, and is linked to the Practice Fusion EHR), patients will be able to have control over their medical record by having access to it, will be able to schedule their own appointments, and even to communicate with the care provider.

CMIO Magazine: Bad economic conditions are sure to hit healthcare providers hard with more uncompensated care and tougher lending markets. When IT costs come under the microscope, how can technology, including that provided by Practice Fusion, prove that it’s paying its way?

Dr. Rowley: We have made the use of our EMR virtually dummy proof and at a fraction of a cost of the other vendors. The implementation takes days and hours, not months. We have removed the burden of having practices hire technical folks to implement and support the system. The practice needs to invest in some equipment (i.e. PCs or Laptops) in their offices and exam rooms but that’s a fraction of the overall cost of ownership.

CMIO Magazine: Any closing remarks?

Dr. Rowley: If an organization has a list of their patients we can upload them into the system, so on day 1, the system has some of their own data. We integrate with billing systems and have been successful in the HL7 integration and bridging that gap.